r/AskAcademia

As a PI, I often tell first year student in our first meeting that the first two years of PhD is tend to be the hardest and that there can be adjustments they need to make: where you are adjusting to a lot of new things you didn’t really properly expect: qualifying exam, choosing topic, advisor/trainee communication, time investment, research style and writing. It’s a learning process and after they go through them they will fly. And I tell them to be prepared for objective criticism when I observe anything they need to change especially in the first two years . However I still am not sure what is the best approach to motivate student after I made them aware of this. Some people just don’t like it when you challenge them and cannot face any stress or pressure . Anyone wants to share their approach and what works for you, both as PI or students’ perspective?

My own experiences is that my PI used to mix praising and criticism together so I can feel both motivated and wanting to learn. And I am also generally a stress tolerant person and generally don’t mind objective criticism and advice given to me. But I am not the kind of extremely extroverted person who likes to say beautiful words to motivate people. Any advice or experience to share? How do you motivate students?

My own take is that I work extremely well with students who intrinsically like the subjects and topics and they can take my criticism well. For those who are not ( unfortunately not all students share the same motivation level) I don’t have a good formula or approach to motivate them properly. Any advice ?

My style : I tend to be a little dry. So I only talk about work related with students and I don’t go off the topic. I also don’t say or sugar coat anything to try to motivate them. If I observe mistakes or unacceptable presentations I point them out directly in a very respectful way. But this can be a lot for some first year students who cannot take objective criticism on their work.

Working on a poster to present at a Canadian medical conference in October, what do I do for titles/designations both in the authorship and in the acknowledgement section?

I have my masters, and another author has her PhD, do I put our qualifications behind our names on the author line or not? And would it be just our degree qualifications or also our designations (RN, NP, etc)?

In the acknowledgment section we have a mix of medical doctors and PhD’s. Do I use Dr. First Lastname for everyone, or just the MD’s and use First Lastname PhD for those that it applies to?

I want to make sure I am being respectful while also following the rules!

Currently a biology postdoc in Belgium.

I have what it takes scientifically, my CV of experience, funding, and publications is not too shabby, but I don't like to kiss ass and I don't like to exploit people. Hiring a PhD/postdoc is basically exploiting people. That's nothing to do with you as a person, that's how the system works. And being on tenure track means kissing ass of tenured faculty for 10+ years.

Am i wrong? I love science, I hate how people are treated within science and I don't want to be part of it. It's not a bad experience I had, this is how it is labs in countries in 3 different continents I've worked on.

Is it as bad in industry? I feel like while there is still kissing ass, workers are at least slightly more fairly compensated for their labor. Having to fire someone is terrible, but I feel is less often than when you have to let people go in academia because of lack of funding and also you're not ruining the life of someone who travelled halfway across the world to a new country just to join your lab and will be kicked out of the country if you fail to get funding.

Hello everyone. I'm a very devout muslim theologian. Though I'm working on some theology related projects right now, I want a sort of 'normal job' at the back of my mind to fall back on. For me, becoming a muslim/islamic studies professor seemed the most logical (and it seems great to teach a class!). But I'm unsure on how to become one? I hear whispers about needing to become a TA, that only a masters is needed some places while a Phd might actually be expected in most? Is there a work experience requirement? I tried googling it but there was no clear answer really.

P.S: I will say, I suspect that this niche field may be a bit more lenient than other fields in its professorship requirements especially in the liberal arts. It is exceedingly rare, really, to find someone with a Phd that would be considered 'legit' within the islamic field (from Al Azhar, some Saudi Arabian University, etc). There are some random Phd programs in more western accredited universities but I'm jaded to thing they are effectively white-washed, impotent, with content literally nonsensical (as often this religion is taught by people who hardly speak to muslims, let alone are one).

What do we think?

(PS please excuse the very lax language and grammar here, lol).

As I am sure many of you deal with, I am having trouble motivating my students to actually read the textbook/assigned material. I am especially struggling with getting them to read scientific articles. They mostly just ignore them and then perform terribly on questions derived from the readings.

What methods have you found success with? I have required summaries, outlines, etc in the past but have had mixed results. How can I best encourage them to engage with scientific literature?

Hello, starting a postdoc next year and plan to apply to faculty positions as they come up. I know universities generally have salary ranges publicly available in their collective agreement (and have reviewed a few), but thought this would be more efficient and maybe also helpful for others. I am particularly curious about assistant professor salaries but curious about others as well.

City:
Role:
Salary (9 or 12 month contract?):
Did you negotiate your salary & how:

If you are feeling generous, maybe you could also share:
*What were some non-negotiables for you?
*Any advice for new phds going on the job market?
*Any other information you think would be helpful:

I work in non-profit fundraising, but not for a school. When I'm researching potential donors, I frequently come across gifts made to endow chairs (i.e. the Morticia and Gomez Addams Chair in Arachnology at UC Sunnydale).

I've encountered these gifts enough to know that a gift to endow a chair is generally larger than one to endow a professorship. But one thing I've never been sure of - do these endowed chairs fulfill the role of a departmental leadership position, or is it more of an honorary thing? I would also understand if it varied from institution to institution.

EDIT: Many thanks for all the helpful responses!

I’m currently finishing my Bachelor’s thesis and starting to question my dream of working in academia. My last two experiences in academia have been complete trainwrecks:

• Job #1 (Science Network Firm): My manager was a former academic who rose through the ranks solely based on publications, not leadership skills. She was nice, but managed to overwork half the team into months-long burnout while underworking the rest. I eventually quit.
• Job #2 (Current Thesis Lab): My direct supervisor is virtually non-existent, ignores messages, and gives incorrect instructions that have repeatedly ruined my experiments. When questioned by the head PI (my main supervisor), she threw me under the bus, claiming I work too slowly and need constant hand-holding. Meanwhile, my lab mates tell me I work with the focus of a PhD student.

My main drive is doing impactful research, and I’m genuinely stress-resilient when working toward a clear goal. But right now, it feels like everyone in academia is solely focused on individual gain rather than the science itself.

Is this toxic leadership dynamic built into the structure of academia, or have I just hit a streak of terrible luck?

I’m an incoming 1st year PhD student in the physics program at an American university. Initially, I was interested in working in Professor A’s group, and before committing to the program I reached out to them to confirm that they have the funding to take me on as a student.

However, that was in April, and in the meantime I’ve had the chance to gain experience in an adjacent subfield that aligns much more with the work done by Professor B. I’ve realized through this new experience that I would much prefer to continue this same type of research during my PhD, and that I would prefer to work with Professor B. I’ve reached out to them and confirmed that they have funding for me to do so as well.

However, one big issue is that I verbally confirmed my interest in working with Professor A back in April (although to my knowledge they never signed the forms to make them my official advisor). What’s more, A is in the Electrical Engineering department, which admits directly to a PI’s lab instead of the program at large. Because of my initial verbal commitment, Professor A’s group denied admission of an additional PhD student in order to have the funding available for me. I feel awful about backing out now, but I’ve realized working with Professor B would be much better for me overall. How should I handle this situation?

TLDR: I informally committed to joining lab A, but before my first day I’m looking to change to lab B and I’m wondering what the etiquette surrounding that is

I’m completely new to academic conferences and have just started my PhD, so I’m a little confused about how conference presentations actually work.

When people say they are presenting at a conference, what exactly are they presenting? Is it usually a completed research study, or can it also be a research idea, proposed study, literature review, theoretical framework, or work in progress?

I’m also confused about the difference between an oral conference presentation and a poster. Do both generally present the same kind of research, just in different formats?

My biggest confusion is about PhD students who present at conferences only a few months after starting their PhD. For example, if someone starts their PhD in September and presents at a conference a few months later, what would they realistically have to present by then? It obviously wouldn’t be their entire PhD research, so would they present their research proposal, an initial research question/framework, preliminary work, or something else?

Does this depend entirely on the specific conference and what they accept in their call for papers?

I’d really appreciate hearing from current/former PhD students about what you presented at your first conference, especially if it was early in your PhD.

Reading tons of papers, highlighting as I go, but two weeks later I have no idea which paper had which data point. Currently using Excel to log key info and it's fine, but curious if there's a better way to organize what you extract from papers so it's actually searchable later. What's your system?

Hi, I’m 26F from India, currently preparing to apply for PhD positions in chemistry in Europe. My main targets are Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, & Sweden.

I’ve also been in a relationship with my boyfriend for about 4 years, and we are seriously considering getting married. He works in the corporate sector in procurement, so if I move to Europe for my PhD, the plan would ideally be for him to move with me and establish his own career there as well.

Does it make more sense to get married before I start my PhD, or should we wait until after I’m settled into the PhD?

I'm not asking whether I should marry him in general. We've already discussed marriage seriously. I'm trying to understand the practical implications of getting married before moving abroad for an international PhD.

I wish to hear from women who completed a PhD abroad while married, or who moved abroad with their partner before/during their PhD.

A few things I'd really like to know:

1. Did your partner move with you? How difficult was it for them to find work?
2. Did marriage/spouse residence rights actually make a meaningful difference?
3. For those in Europe, which countries have been particularly good/bad for dual-career couples?
4. Anything you wish you had discussed with your partner before moving abroad?

I do not wish to do more of long distance relationship, I want us together. Please help.

Hi there. This is my first time posting here, so I apologize if I am doing this wrong.

I just started my first year in my PhD program, studying journalism and mass communication in the USA. I have been assigned to two faculty members who do research I am very interested in, but their methods are foreign to me.

I am a qualitative researcher, and I am quite skilled in this space. However, I am not good at quantitative research at all. I do not want to make excuses for myself, but I am severely dyslexic (dysgraphia and dyscalcia as well) and anything quantitative genuinely makes no sense to me. I have tried endlessly but it has never clicked.

Both of my professors are skilled in quantitative methods, and I will be assisting them in experiments, content analysis, and others. I try my best at everything I am tasked with, but this is already quite a struggle, and it is only my first week.

I was wondering if anyone here has had any similar situations, and if you have tips for success. I know I will probably never be a skill quantitative researcher, but I do want to be a competent assistant to the amazing researchers I will be working with.

Dear everybody,

I am a Bachelors student currently doing a placement in Cambridge University. I study in mainland Europe, where, to do a PhD, you have to do a Masters placement. I found out that in the UK you don't actually need a Masters to do a PhD, just a bachelors. I was thinking of doing a Masters anyway (and then a PhD), and although this peaked my interest I didn't think too much about it.

Anyway, talking to a PI recently at Cambridge, I apparently impressed and he is now interested in taking me on as a PhD after my Bachelors (I didn't ask for it he just offered).

I wanted to ask, what are the positives and the negatives of doing a masters first. Should I accept or say I would like to come back after two years. I have actually a fair bit of research experience already, from summer programs, the Amgen Research Program and internships during my studies.

I like the field of research he works in and have done some myself, but of course this is all coming at me very quickly.

Any advice would be much appreciated, especially fro those with PhD and academia experience in general.

So, If a stupid guy wanted to get a job as a professor but his intelligence was really bad. Like, Mr. Bean level shit. Which social science would you advise this guy to do a phd in?

Sociology? Economics?

Hi all,

so I am a historian and basically for the first time have gotten some research money to hire a part-time research assistant. I know that in certain fields using research assistants is very common, but I basically have never used one or, for the most part, felt the need to hire one. Ever since grad school, I have basically done my own research work from archival work to literature reviews and writing of course. That being said, I know that some professors in the humanities and history specifically do use research assistants.

So my question (particularly to those humanists that use RAs) is what do people in the humanities use research assistants for. Connected to the question is also how one strikes a balance between delegating some work but keeping the core work for oneself, i.e. I would not want an RA be involved with my writing for instance. After all it will be my name on the article/book in the end.

I’m trying to work out whether I’m experiencing a prolonged period of burnout that I can recover from, or whether I’m reaching a point where academia is no longer sustainable for me. I'd love to hear from people who have experienced similar.

For context, I am neurodivergent with some long-term mental health issues, I went through a bunch of difficult personal circumstances during my PhD, and I'm in STEM (wet-lab based, UK). Overall I really enjoyed my PhD, I submitted my thesis last year and was still pretty sold on a career in academia. I went straight into a 6 month postdoc that I didn't enjoy (the project was flawed from the start, supervisor was micromanaging, I had a long commute). After that, I was fortunate enough to land a two year postdoc fellowship that is my ideal academic situation on paper.

I'm 5 months in now and there are loads of things to love. I have total freedom to explore the research I want, I'm living in the city I want to be in, and my sponsors are really supportive. Problem is, I'm barely coping. I'm 1 month back to work after almost 2 months of sick leave which really helped at the time -- I started doing my hobbies again, and being able to exercise lightly or see friends without it wiping me out, I eat well, journal etc, and I'm trying to do all the right things to keep those -- but I'm still exhausted.

I'm mostly struggling with executive functioning demands rather than actually disliking the job. I can't seem to narrow my research direction, and the independence feels really isolating. My research is cross-disciplinary and noone at my university is working in the specific research area I'm in. My love for the work is still there -- I'm writing a review paper and really enjoying it -- I just can't get myself into the lab or make any big decisions because I'm so tired. I have a fairly detailed experimental plan for the next few months but it's mostly reproducing/learning from others' work, and it's difficult to imagine myself achieving anything novel.

A therapist mentioned over a year ago that I fit the criteria for severe burnout alongside neurodivergent burnout, but I guess I underestimated how long recovery would take. I think about quitting often, but I love research, I love teaching/mentoring, I love the competition, conferences, reading, writing, seminars, the environment; so I don't want to make a rash decision.

Has anyone been in a situation where they still loved research and had a good academic environment, but simply couldn't function because of burnout? Did you eventually recover and continue in academia? I don't want to walk away from an amazing opportunity, but I'm also worried I'm trying to force myself to continue in something that I cannot sustain right now.

I am not talking about this admin obviously (ignoring their recent NIH proposed change to $1-2k for covering APC charges which does nothing but favor wealthier labs who have non NIH funds). But in general, have there been any pushes to regulate APC charges? It seems like literally everyone on the planet agrees that APC charges (particularly OA charges) have become detrimental to science in every way possible and a lot of journals essentially have monopolies in their fields given them unprecedented pricing power.

But the most bewildering and confusing fact about all this is that APC charges are paid for by taxpayers. Professors use publicly funded grants to pay journals the right to publish publicly funded research so that taxpayers can read the research they funded without having to pay a subscription.

The whole boycott argument or "I only publish in society journals" is nice but we all know this will never be adopted across the field. It seems like gov intervention is desperately needed here? Otherwise we are left with a system where tax payers are literally propping up a multi billion dollar industry.

I’m a postgraduate student starting a professional training course. My university recently told me that I needed to submit some documents in person before my mandatory Garda/police vetting could be completed; but in the meantime they removed the registration block - so I could proceed with that.

I haven’t submitted those documents yet. However, I’ve just checked my student portal and the clearance section now says:

Clearance: Garda Vetting
Academic year: 2026/27
Status: Passed

I definitely didn’t complete the outstanding step myself, because frankly, it’s going to be tough to do so given the China-related requirements 😩

Does “Passed” necessarily mean the vetting itself is complete?

Hi everyone!

I was wondering whether I could use Soulseek to upload a bunch of academic papers or something like that? I get access from my University, and I have been archiving quite a bunch of papers. Like everything capitalistic, the academic publishing houses have paywalled research that tax dollars have funded, and I would like to make them available.

I was wondering if others have done that before, and was also wondering about the legal ramifications of the same.

Any opinion would be appreciated and do let me know if it's a viable option!

Note: best flair in this situation ig?